Ayyadurai Wins in Gawker Defamation Suit

Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai, the MIT graduate who claims he invented email in the 1970s, won $750,000 Wednesday in a bankruptcy court settlement with Gawker Media, according to court documents.

"This is a victory for truth, and more should be forthcoming," Ayyadurai said in a phone call with the Business Journal....

Ayyadurai sued Gawker Media, as well as founder Nick Denton, editor John Cook and staff writer Sam Biddle, in federal court in Boston in May, several months after the Bollea judgment was handed down in March. Ayyadurai sought $35 million in damages for "defamatory" articles posted on Gawker and the associated site Gizmodo that mocked his claim to have invented email.

After Gawker filed for bankruptcy in New York in June, Ayyadurai became a plaintiff in the case alongside Bollea and several others. Ayyadurai is represented by Timothy Cornell, a Boston-based lawyer, and Charles Harder, the Los Angeles-based lawyer who also represented Bollea......

As part of the settlement agreement, one of the articles about Ayyadurai will be removed removed from the internet. Univision executives voted to remove the two other articles articles about Ayyadurai when they bought Gawker's constellation of sites earlier this year.